Schmandel - I have observed and been a part of corporate IT for more than 30 years. Management of a Microsoft desktop in a large corporate environment should require about 1 hour of tech support per week per hundred desktops, if the process is well managed. That is not a big deal. Very large corporate infrastructures, with tens of thousands of desktops, can provide good service to their user base with a handful of techs. Maintenance of the back end, network and server infrastructure for that base requires a larger support team. I don't see the connection between that and the statement about opening an email attachment.
I am not blaming the victims - I don't happen to see the victims you describe.
Industry research is good, bad and indifferent. My personal experience is my guide in this area, not some vague reading of industry BS.
Is the Win9X desktop a buggy, unreliable platform based on what was really an 8-bit OS from 20 years ago? Sure. Do users want something better? Apparently not - not if it costs them even a single feature. OS/2 was clearly "better" than Win9X, especially "warp". NT is a much more stable and secure platform than Win9X, and has been available in a reasonably compatible form for more than 6 years. Why do users continue to demand Win9X? Not because it is faster - it's not. Not because it is more secure - it is, as Cheryl points out, woefully insecure. Not because it is less expensive - Compaq and others have offered their commercial desktops with either Win9X or NT at the same price for a while now.
The reason is simple - users like the Win9X desktop despite its failings, because of the utility, wide range of programs, backward compatibility, and ease of use. The problems you and others point out, while correct, just have not been important enough to influence that user base.
I don't know why you drop into personal attack when I was responding in a civil way to your post. But since we are there, I think it is collossally arrogant of you to suggest that hundreds of millions of users are all idiots and sheep for using Win9X. But it doesn't matter - if your viewpoint were correct, OS/2, or NT, or some other "better" desktop would have replaced Win9X long ago. The fact that it has not just means that Win9X, for all of its weaknesses and failings, meets the needs of desktop users better than anything else available. |
